With your Bible background may I ask you to help us with something regarding the parable of the ten bridesmaids? And yes, the word should be bridesmaids not virgins. Are the ten bridesmaids, not the bride? These in the parable are the ones who are tasked with watching for the Bridegroom’s approach, to alert the Bride. Is there a more accurate way to understand the players in the parable? The Bride is not spoken of directly, just her bridesmaids who job it was to watch for the Bridegroom. The five with oli for their lamps we understand tyo be those with Holy Spirit fuel. Could we see the five who did not bring ‘oil’ as ther ones left behind when the Bride and the faithful leave? ... Could those left behind be the ones who will show up in Heaven after the Tribulation begins? Or are the five with oil the ones who will show up after Tribulation begins? Can you see the conundrum? The Bridegroom will not be coming for five brides ... the parable is about the bridesmaids.
Understand that we see through a glass darkly at this point, and these things are not “salvation issues”, here is what I think is going on.
When Jesus was asked why his disciples didn’t fast, He said it was because the “friends of the Bridegroom” didn’t fast while the Bridegroom was still with them. So we started out as the “friends of the Bridegroom”, and after the Ascension the true believers became the “Body of Christ” with Jesus as our Head.
The “Body of Christ” was “conceived” at Pentecost in 32/33 AD and will be “born from above” at the Feast of Trumpets in September 2017. This is when the dead in Christ rise first and those who are alive are caught up to meet Jesus Christ in the air.
I think you rightly identified those who are caught up as the five wise Bridesmaids. While we are here we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, to varying extents, but is is more like being “conceived again” than “born again”. These join the Saints that Jesus brought out of Abraham’s Bosom on his resurrection on the Glassy Sea of Revelation 4 and 5.
Those five foolish Bridesmaids are the believers who are alive, and believe, but are just not filled with enough of the Holy Spirit to go. They will be saved, but they have to go through part of the Tribulation and get their heads cut off. (I think this is pretty good incentive to ask for as much Holy Spirit everyday as one can take.) Some of these folks show up at the opening of the Fifth Seal under the altar, and all of them show up as “a multitude from the Great Tribulation”, Revelation 7:9-17.
So that is what is going on in Heaven. Back on Earth, we have the 144,000 male virgin Jews, 12,000 from each tribe, counting Joseph double, and excluding Dan. (This is why I suspect that the Anti-Christ will come out of the Tribe of Dan.) We have the believers who have been left behind, and those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, but will come to faith in Jesus Christ during the Tribulation and are killed for it. These folks get “reaped” in Revelation 14:14-16.
A faithful remnant of Israel flees into the wilderness and is protected for 1260 days. (Revelation 12:6) This appears to be the people who initially populate the Millennial Kingdom as ordinary human beings. They get 1000 years without any Satanic temptation, but at the end of the 1000 years, when Satan is let loose again, many go over to his side. Not a good move. The rebellion is crushed and the final resurrection and judgement takes place.
Now the good have been separated from the evil, and the Universe undergoes another “phase transition” to the “new heaven and new earth”.
Then we finally get to the part where “the bride, the Lamb’s Wife” is revealed, and it is a city! The new Jerusalem with high walls, 12 gates named for the Tribes of Israel, and 12 foundations named for the 12 Apostles of the Lamb.
Now we, the saved, are still around as individual beings (Revelation 21:24-27) who visit the new Jerusalem, and partake of its blessings (Revelation 22:1-5)
So, to me at least, the Bride is still a mystery. I know there are those who try to say that the Church is the Bride of Christ, but the Bible makes clear that Israel is the Wife of YHWH, and that she divorced Him, He wants her back and will go to great lengths to get her back.
If you stick with being a faithful member of the Body of Christ, keeping His Commandments, i.e., Love God, and Love your neighbor, and asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit at every opportunity so that you can carry out your assigned task, then you are going to be OK.